Diadem from the Stars (23 page)

Then a cloud of dust spurted up from the white sand of the roadway down where it came into the valley. At the same time the touch in her mind grew stronger.
Tarnsian
, she thought, startled. She watched the dust creep along the road. “Just one rider. It's not big enough … not even a caravan. He's crazy!” She frowned and shook her head helplessly. Turning the stallion, she sent him up the road at a fast canter. “Leaving all that he had … just to chase me down.…” A vast puzzlement shrank her voice to a squeak.

The suns beat down on her bare head, starting a dull ache that made Tarnsian's probe even harder to bear.
We can't go much farther,
she thought,
not till the end of high heat.
She scrubbed her free hand across her face and looked around. The road had curved back toward the river until it roared past a few meters away down a rocky bank. She turned the stallion off the road and picked her way down the slope until she was riding beside the water, protected from the suns' searing heat by the trees that lined the river banks. As she let the stallion find his way through the rocks, she muttered vindictively, “Hope they don't like him back there. Hope they hold him up good.”

The heat got more and more oppressive. Although the trees cut the killing radiation from Hesh, all too soon the air was so hot and thick that it was hard to breathe. Mulak panted heavily. He stumbled every few steps, too tired to lift his feet over the scattered rocks.

Aleytys pulled him to a stop and leaned on the saddle horn, looking around. Just ahead was a tree-lined circlet of grass. A huge ballut leaned precariously out over the river, throwing a dark patch of shade on the cool green water swirling in gentle whorls around a quiet pool close to the tree's exposed roots. Aleytys slid off the stallion's back, loosened the cinch, and worked the bridle off his sweating head so he could graze in comfort. She patted him and glanced speculatively at the saddle.
Better not,
she thought. With a smile, she slapped him on the flank, sending him off to eat and drink. Hurriedly she stripped off her clothes and hung them over a branch stub to let wind blow the staleness out of them. As she edged down to the rocky pool, the stones felt hot and good under her feet and she heard with quiet delight the shrill
kree-kree
of the noon-singers. At the water's edge she pulled a handful of grass to scrub with, then walked into the water, yelping and shuddering as rock-warmed feet plunged into the snow-melt of the mountain river. The surface inch or so was sun-warmed but the water below was icy. The cold seared into the whip-marks crossing and recrossing her back. She wedged the wisps of grass in between two water-polished rocks and ducked her head beneath the water.

13

On the third day of the escape she sighed wearily and slid down from Mulak's back. Her knees buckled and she grabbed hastily at a stirrup leather. “Ahai! Mulak, mi-muklis, this riding all night's for pain-lovers only.”

She clucked to the stallion, starting him up the roadway once again and stumbling uphill beside him. The road was tipping more and more steeply into the sky every day now, the downhill dips more shallow. She closed her eyes and felt with her mind. Tarnsian was still behind, clinging to the trail with an insane stubbornness. “Damn the man,” she muttered. “Why the hell does he do it?” She shook her head. “Mulak, my friend, you've got more sense in that horse head of yours than he does in his.”

She shielded her eyes with her hand and looked up along the road. It disappeared around a curve and appeared again higher up. The line where it met the sky seemed closer.
If I can make it over by high heat …

She looked around at the coarse sunburned patches of soil and naked rock, then glanced back over her shoulder at the suns. Horli was just edging her top above the eastern horizon.
One good thing,
she thought.
Horli occludes Hesh. It gives me an edge.
She sighed, then smiled. The air up here was chill and quiet as the morning made its beginning.

Breathing was harder this high and when the air heated up it would be harder still. She was breathing faster than usual and she could feel her heart pounding. Each breath burned her throat and dried out the inside of her nose. Half the time she was breathing through her mouth just to gulp in enough air to satisfy her straining lungs.

When Horli was a finger-width clear of the horizon, she pulled the stallion to a stop. He was hot and sweaty and his feet were dragging. Aleytys slid down and scratched him on the neck. Then she unhooked the waterbag and squeezed some water into her hands, holding it under his nose. He sucked it up eagerly and nickered for more.

She looked around. One of the ruts in the road had an extra depth where it crossed earth instead of the thinly covered rock. She poured some water in the rut and let the horse gulp it down. She filled the hollow again, then splashed water over her dry skin and swallowed several mouthfuls of the liquid. After another few minutes' rest, though, she grimaced and stood up. Catching hold of the saddle horn, she walked along beside the stallion and let him support part of her weight as they climbed higher and higher. As she stumbled on, she leaned her head against his neck and closed her burning eyes, letting him find their way up the road.

Abruptly she was walking faster and faster until she felt as if she was flying; walking was so easy … so easy? The pain in her knees vanished. Mulak nickered. With a haze of weariness wheeling through her head, she looked around. Although the air still burned her lungs and cut like knives whenever she took a deep breath, she was walking on a more or less level patch of ground. On either side of the narrow rutted track, barren rocks soared to needle points. She smiled, then laughed outright. “The tangra Suzan,” she cried exultantly: “Mulak, we're over the top.”

Five minutes later they rounded a bulge of rock and stood at the top of a long downslope. Far below there was a distant flatness, blue and hazy, that went on and on to the edge of the world. “We did it, Mulak. That's the Great Green out there.” She turned back and scanned the sky anxiously, sheltering her eyes with her hand. Hesh floated two hands' width above the horizon. Aleytys sighed and set out again, downhill this time. As she wound down the steep switchbacks on the far side of the pass, she glanced back at Horli and smiled vindictively. “I hope high heat catches that bastard right in the middle of this frying pan.”

Downhill walking proved even harder on her legs. Down and around she went until her knees threatened to unhinge completely. After the fourth switchback she dropped heavily onto a rock beside the trail and examined the soles of her feet. The skin was worn parchment-thin with stone bruises scattered in an abstract pattern of red-purple splotches over the ground-in gray background. “Ahai! Ai-Aschla,” she muttered She wiggled her toes and shook her head; they felt funny, numb, like they were encased in transparent sheaths. “Keep on like this,” she breathed, “and I'll wear them off to my knees. Mulak, aziz-mi, I know you're tired, but I've got to ride a while.”

Down and down along a trail that seemed to stretch on forever. Rest at high heat. Rest so the horse could graze. Drink. A mouthful at a time. Move on. Down. Force down dry tasteless chunks of bread. Walk. Ride. Walk again to spare the strength of the horse. Down.…

Three days down the mountain Mulak stumbled and fell to his knees, jolting Aleytys out of the saddle.

She pushed up on an elbow and rubbed her aching eyes. With a vast effort, she managed to focus her eyes. The stallion stood with his head hanging, his gaunt sides heaving painfully. She sat up and rubbed her hands over her face, trying to think.

With Hesh occluded, high heat was brutally uncomfortable but not deadly, so she had pushed hard. She looked at the horse. Too hard. With an effort, she stood up and swayed, nearly falling, while the world swung around her and finally steadied. She staggered over to him and knelt to look at the cuts on his knees. Weak tears spilling from her eyes in futile remorse for her thoughtlessness, she pressed her fingers over the wounds and let the power-river flow through her hands. The world reeled and grayed, then she plunged into blackness.

Sometime later she woke to find Mulak pushing at her head with his nose. She lifted her hand to shove him away and was startled to find herself so weak. Trembling in every limb so that she had to move in infinitesimal increments, she finally managed to get to her feet. She clung to the stirrup and let her head settle and the dizziness pass away. Getting in the saddle was totally impossible. She didn't even try.

The next hour passed somehow, though half the time she was stumbling along automatically while her mind blanked out. Five times she woke to find herself in a heap on the ground with Mulak waiting patiently beside her. Each time it was impossible to get up but she did it, reaching the lake just as Horli began to slide past the horizon.

The grass felt like heaven under her lacerated feet and the dark shade of the trees was a blessing to her tired, aching eyes. She tumbled into the water at the edge of the lake and let the coolness wash over her. She felt as if her skin itself were drinking in the water and it was cool, so cool, over her eyes.

Mulak was nibbling at the grass, trying to eat around the bit. “Madar! Again. You'd think I'd learn. Sorry, my friend.” She splashed out of the water and stripped the bridle off, then the saddle and blanket. He whinnied with pleasure and began cropping eagerly at the lush grass on the bank of the lake.

After that rest the travel was easier because the road followed the water and because Aleytys didn't want to make the mistake again of running the two of them off their feet. But she never stopped long. She didn't dare. She would plunge into the river with the stallion, washing off the outer layers of grit and salt-sweat, and along with them some of the aches and pains of fatigue.

And always Tarnsian was there behind her. Sometimes the mind-touch would slip away and not return for hours. But she never let herself hope. It always came back. Sometimes the probe would be a frail shadow so tenuous she scarcely felt it. Sometimes it compelled so strongly, fighting it was like wading through deep water.

She thinned, the strain and lack of proper food melted flesh off her bones. As the days passed she became sun-black skin stretched over those bones while her hair turned brittle and lank, caked and clotted together by sweat, dust, and her body's minerals. Her hands were beginning to shake whenever she lifted them. They were so rough, bony, grimed with ground-in dirt, which mere rinsing wouldn't wash away, that she hated to look at them. Mulak was in little better shape. The hurried snatches of grass and the constant moving on were wearing him down again.

He stumbled. Aleytys compensated immediately, shifting her weight to help him recover. She patted him on the neck. “Whoa, boy, careful.” She slid off his back and looked him over. His ribs were beginning to show and his roughened coat was covered with white salt stains and dried froth. She shook her head. “Tonight we rest, mi-muklis. If he catches us, well, he catches us. At least you can get yourself a bellyful.” She stretched and groaned. “Ahhh-ahai, my stomach's making love to my backbone.” She peered down the road. “I wonder how much farther to the tijarat.” Everything was beginning to fuzz at the edges for her. Her head ached dully and there was a sickening sense of foreboding that kept intruding on her. She pressed her lips together and led the stallion off the road under the trees.

After she stripped him and sent him into the river, she pulled off her own rags and dropped them in a heap on the grass, pinning them under the saddle so a sudden gust of wind wouldn't leave her naked. Walking cautiously over the tough slippery grass, feeling absurdly fragile around the knees, she waded into the river and began scrubbing Mulak's sides with a handful of grass. He shook himself vigorously, showering her with large splattery drops of water. She smiled tiredly and let him heave himself out of the river and start grazing hungrily on the succulent watergrass. “I wish I had some corn for you,” she said.

After rubbing as much of the grime as she could from her tired body, she wobbled over to a rock and sat down—a little harder than she'd planned when her knees suddenly folded. “Right now,” she murmured, a wry grin stretching her sore mouth, “I wish I had that piece of moldy cheese I started with.”

She bent down and flicked a finger in the water, sending a tiny shower of droplets into the air. “I couldn't do it before.” She rested her hands on her knees and stared down into the clear green water. “I had to let the fish go. Funny how one's scruples fall away when it comes down to starving.” She reached out with her mind and found a small fish. Conquering her intense distaste, she teased it downstream to her reaching fingers. Scooping it out of the water, she tossed it onto the bank and stared determinedly across at the other side of the river while the fish flopped its life out behind her.

A little sick in her heart, Aleytys plodded up the bank to her saddle. She slid the knife out of its sheath and walked reluctantly back to the dead fish. For a long minute she stared down at the slimy streamlined shape glistening opalescent in the strong light. Moments ago she had shared life with the fish, knowing it, in a way, more thoroughly than she knew her own hand. It might as well have been her own hand lying there, still, limp, dead. “I can't,” she whimpered. “I can't.” Then her stomach cramped again and her knees gave way, dumping her beside the fish. “Ai-Madar,” she gasped. “My baby.”

Gritting her teeth, she ran the knife along the fish's belly, feeling like a murderer. She gutted it, cut off its head, and threw the offal into the river. She poked at the limp fragment with the point of her knife. With a sigh and a slight shudder she caught an edge of the skin on the knife and peeled it back, baring the layered translucent flesh. She sliced a small bit off. Closing her eyes, she lifted it almost to her lips, then lowered her hand as sick revulsion shuddered through her. Then she dredged up the remnants of her determination. “I won't give in to that man. I won't,” she growled.